His imprisonment was spent in Omori, one of the largest POW camps built across Japan. Shortly before he died, my father sat in front of a video camera to tell the full story of his experience. Prior to this he had been mostly silent — a practice shared by many of his generation often called “the greatest.” His impending death from cancer compelled him to speak openly. What he told us was disturbing.
His experience of survival is corroborated in vivid detail in Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand’s tale of Louie Zamperini, another Omori survivor. Hillenbrand is one fine storyteller. She proved this with Seabiscuit, the award-winning story of a forgotten horse. Now she combines the same gifts for vivid historical details with crisp narrative pacing, bringing to life a mostly forgotten man whose extraordinary story needs to be more widely known.
The book begins in May 1943 when Zamperini along with his crewmates crash into the Pacific Ocean and are presumed dead by his family, the military, and the rest of the world. Zamperini was a rebellious brawling youth destined for prison or worse. As a teenage runner, he poised to break the 4-minute mile. Hillenbrand follows him through the Berlin Olympics and eventually into the military as the war breaks out. How Zamperini and his crewmates survived 34 days in the vast ocean, with nothing to eat or drink, fending off sharks, is told in gripping detail — a testament to Hillenbrand’s research efforts and her narrative talent. The descriptions of the brutality that POWs faced in Japanese camps is crafted with attention to every harrowing detail. Nothing here is abstract; it is as real as Zamperini and his fellow POWs lives in that extreme condition where cruelty and humanity meet.
One could call this a sports story but that would be misleading. One could also call it historical fiction and that would be equally misleading. It does tell the story of a remarkable runner who cut short his promising career to serve his country, but it is anything but fictional. This book manages to be a sports story of a fine athlete primed to break international records, a theological witness of a man at the edge of hope, and an historical narrative of an untold slice of WWII. Did my father know Zamperini? In all likelihood, yes. They must have spent time together at Omori. Did he ever talk with him? That is one of the questions I wished to ask my father after reading his book. There are more, including those about expressions of faith and hope in extreme conditions. To say more about the faith that emerges and the form it takes would give away too much and spoil the astonishment awaiting the readers of this remarkable story.
ROY W. HOWARD is pastor of St. Mark Church in Rockville, Md., and Outlook book editor.
